Six false ideas about assisted suicide False idea No. 1. An assisted suicide law protects important patient rights. The truth: This law offers no new protection. Patients control their own lives. They already have the right to end their own lives in every state. This law offers no...
Unlike previous laws or proposals to permit assisted suicide, HB 171 represents the next stage in assisted-suicide advocates’ plans to normalize deaths by lethal prescription within medical practice. HB 171 dispenses with second opinions, waiting periods, multiple requests, reporting requirements and other elements which assisted-suicide advocates...
Instead of simply providing end-of-life comfort, D.C.’s new law is poised to do more harm than good. Even those disagreeing on the merits of the larger issue should take a close look at the text of Act 21-577, which leaves patients unprotected, doctors unaccountable, and...
Today I have seen patients with cancers who are living years longer than predicted because of their will to live through the pain and compromised quality of life, being able to enjoy their family and friends. Doctoring is more than prescribing drugs. Compassionate care and...
Recently, numerous accounts in the media and online have indicated that the American Medical Association (AMA) is taking steps toward changing their official policy position on physician-assisted suicide from opposed to neutral. Fortunately, this chatter is inaccurate. In fact, although the AMA is currently considering...
A Dutch woman doctor who asked an elderly patient's family to hold her down while she administered a fatal drug dose has been cleared under Holland's euthanasia laws. Mailonline reported that the patient fought desperately in an attempt not to be killed. Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Regional Review...
A Dutch woman doctor who drugged an elderly woman and then asked her family to hold her down as she fought desperately not to be killed did not break the law, according to medical experts citing the country's euthanasia legislation. The shocking case was referred to...
The physician-assisted suicide debate has arrived in New York in earnest. Last week saw the Medical Aid in Dying Act introduced in the state Legislature. The bill would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients. Those patients would then have the...
John Kelly, director of Boston-based Second Thoughts, an organization that opposes assisted suicide and advocates for people with disabilities, has many concerns with the bill. In states such as Oregon and Washington, where assisted suicide is legal, patients who seek to end their own lives commonly...
Both sides of the doctor-assisted suicide issue are squaring off in New York, the latest battleground state. Last year, a bill was filed to allow doctors to provide a lethal prescription to facilitate doctor-assisted suicide under certain circumstances, but there were not enough votes to pass...